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Dataverse best practices: Tables usage, orphaned tables, retention policies

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Posted on by derekma19

Hi Power Apps experts,

I'm trying to implement some best practices for Dataverse management an monitoring and I have a few questions if someone can give some links/comments/ideas on tha:

Identify apps/flows using tables: I would like to see, for all tables in an environment, what apps or flows are using them. I can do it manually accessing to "Using this table" in the table properties. But I can't find an option to export this as CSV or explore in Power BI. Is this possible?
Orphaned tables: What happen with tables created by users that have left the company and are not in use anymore? They are consuming Dataverse capacity so eventually would like to delete them.
Dataverse Retention Policy: Does Dataverse retention policy can be applied at tenant or environment level? Dataverse long term data retention overview - Power Apps | Microsoft Learn seems to be applied at solution level, but it looks it need to be applied by the user creation the solution at table level, and it does not cover bad practices from users?

Any information on this is greatly appreciated 🙂

Kind Regards

Sergio

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Microsoft Dataverse with Power Apps

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Jonathan Manrique 2,687 on at

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Hi @derekma19

I recommend that you install the CoE Start Kit if it is feasible, it will help you monitor and track the entire organization.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/guidance/coe/starter-kit

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derekma19 on at

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Hi @Jmanriquerios many thanks for your response. I've already deployed the COE toolkit and I can get insights for Power Apps, Power Automate, solutions, etc. However, nothing for Dataverse/entities/etc as far as I know... Is there anything specific for Dataverse in the COE toolkit you recommend for this?

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Jonathan Manrique 2,687 on at

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Hi @derekma19

With XRM Toolbox you can explore a map of all the entities you have, and the attributes you have in the tables

Attribute Manager
Metadata Document Generator
Dependency Identifier

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derekma19 on at

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thanks for this, I think that can cover the first part of the question and I can export tables, and hopefully identified the apps using it.

By the look of it it doesn't include an strategy on Dataverse governance on orphaned entities and how to apply retention policies (to a dataverse database in an environment, not to a solution level) ?

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Jonathan Manrique 2,687 on at

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HI @derekma19

What you asked at the beginning, the three points are achieved using various tools and having what you talk about as governance but already at a strategic level.

For example, the official documentation tells you the retention policies and how to do it.

https://learn.microsoft.com/es-es/power-apps/maker/data-platform/data-retention-overview

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derekma19 on at

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Thanks for this, I appreciate your comments. I haven't had the opportunity to check the tool in deep yet but if it helps with the management of the existing metadata in Dataverse definitely should cover the export of App/Flows linked to the table. Not sure about owner/usage but it is something I need to check.

Data retention article looks like something at solution level, not a tenant level?. If user doesn't enable this option not possible to check. I would like to avoid the problem of users creating tables, forgetting about them, and living there forever consuming capacity and with no "expire" data to remove the data after 6,7,8 years since the data has been modified.

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